Destiny: You Can't Change It
by D. A. Athren
Summary: Rose doesn't get stuck in the parallel universe but instead slams into that white wall we all hate. The Doctor makes plans and we all know how well the Doctor's domestic plans go...


"Doctor, where are we going at," Rose mumbled while she checked her watch, "Six in the morning?"

He looked away from the monitor to take in the sight of her. He had to contain the chuckle that was threatening to escape from him as he took in her bushy eyed, bed haired presence on the jump seat. "I told you I had a surprise for you. Oooh you're going to love it!" he exclaimed, rocking on the heels of his cream trainers. Rose just huffed as she tried to blow a piece of hair away that had fallen into her face.

"I'm really not in the mood for an adventure. My back is quite sore from the licking I took at Canary Wharf," she murmured, stretching at the cost of a wince. The Doctor frowned at her. In an instant, she found herself in his shadow as he gave her concerned eyes, "You told me your long soak in the tub relieved your pain."

"Weeell…it did, for the most part, I mean. I got slammed into a wall going 25 miles an hour you said. There is going to be some pain no matter what," she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

His brows only knitted closer together, "Rose, I could have brought out the dermal regenerator and had you as good as new in no time. Med bay is stocked to take care of you humans in every way, shape, or form."

She just rolled her eyes at him, "Maybe I want to take it slow for a little bit. You know, we are always rushing here and there and saving the universe. With an achy back, it forces me to slow down but you wouldn't understand that because you never have to slow down. EVER!"

Rose was pretty sure if he kept frowning his face up like that it was going to get stuck that all. As if reading her thought, his expression shifted to that of total seriousness as he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it down beside her. "Doctor, what are you doing?"

"I'm showing you," he said as he unbutton the cuff of his left arm and rolled it up, "this!"

She grimaced as she saw that his entire forearm was colored black, blue, purple and yellow. She didn't even know someone could bruise up like that. "I've been travelling on the Tardis for nearly 800 years now. I did the calculations of how much force was going to be on us, remember? Imagine the force that the Void put on you. Now imagine that force times 18.756491…that's how hard it was pulling me. I get injured all the time, Rose."

His eyes had been focused on his forearm while he spoke. When he looked up, he noticed the tears running down her cheeks. "Oh, don't cry. I didn't mean to make you cry. I just wanted to show you that I'm not Superman. There are LOTS of things that can kill me and, eventually, I will die."

"…but still way after the rest of us are gone, yea?" Rose sniffled to him, reaching a hand up to gently caress his injured arm.

He nodded sadly to her, wiping away the tears on her cheeks with his uninjured arm. She giggled at the gesture, tugging him towards her for a hug. He smiled at her before wrapping his arms gingerly around her, allowing her to cry on his shoulder for a bit. Well, for exactly 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

"So, Doctor, what will we be doing while we recuperate?" she asked.

He motioned towards the Tardis doors, "Why don't you go and see?"  
>Giving him the famous tongue-in-teeth grin, he watched as she jumped up from the seat and ran over to the doors. Looking back at him for a moment, she slowly opened them, a look of pure joy spreading across her face. "Oh…you actually were listening to me?" she said, covering her mouth with her hands in surprise.<p>

"I always listen to you even when I should be listening to something else. I hope you are up for an old fashion road trip, Rose Tyler!"

By the time she had come back from packing a bag for a few days of coastal life, the Doctor had already filled the 2 large coolers with ice, all the items they could need for sandwiches, any cool items they could cook over an open fire, and at least 12 different varieties of juice and soda, several of which she had never heard of. It wasn't until he crawled out of the back of the 1969 Lime Green Volkswagen Beetle that she noticed that he wasn't in his suit. In fact, what he had on was just…odd. She had never seen him in anything but the brown or blue pinstripe suits. This…this was interesting.

"What?" he said as he looked down at his flip flops, Blue Gillespie tee, and black swim trunks, "Did I put something on wrong?"

"No, you're fine. It's just…I'm so use to you looking like a professor with a young face. Now the young face matches the clothing and I can't help but find it…weird," Rose said as she threw her bag into the Beetle's trunk. He jumped up and down a few times before answering her, "Weeell, I figured with the young face my regeneration gave me I had to wear something to make the baddies take me seriously. As much as I hate to admit it…the Doctor isn't enough to make them fear me all the time. The first thing out of their mouth nowadays is…"

"Doctor Who?" she said with a smile, wiping away a bit of marmalade he had gotten on his black tee.

He looked down at where she had wiped, looking at the sticky orange marmalade glistening on her finger tip. What she did next surprised him in more ways than one. She took the glistening finger into her mouth and cleaned it off. He couldn't help the way his jaw went slack and the pool of heat that formed in the very bottom of his gut. His eyes drifted downwards, his mind focusing a little too much on the tightness of her blue and red striped maxi dress. Yup, he really shouldn't be thinking about how her curves might look without the offending fabric in the way.

Rose took his staring as being grossed out, "I'm sorry Doctor. I've been traveling with you for almost 2 years and, usually, any marmalade that gets on your shirt never made it to your mouth. I figured I just lick it off instead of going back inside the Tardis to the bathroom just to wash my hands."

"No, no, no, you're fine! I was just a bit shocked. Never had a woman eat food off of me before," he said cheekily, giving her his biggest smile.

She grinned up at him, "So, what is the game plan once we get on the road?"

"Weeell, I parked the Tardis about an hour out from Copenhagen. It's roughly 8 in the morning now and the most beautiful pool in all of Denmark sits right in the heart of the city. I figured we spend a few hours there, get a bit of lunch somewhere, and then just spend the afternoon visiting landmarks in the Bug. I think we are both pretty worn out from the, you know, Cybermen thing," he rambled out, tugging at his ear a bit, "So I'm trying to keep physical activity limited. Anyway, just before sunset, we can drive to this little beach I found. Main reason I got the Bug is because it is the only thing small enough to go down the path leading to it. That and a horse but I don't think the trot of one would be good for your back. From there we could build a little fire and roast up some of the sausages and marshmallows we brought along and watch the sunset."

"Oh that is a very reasonable plan. Tomorrow morning we'll get on the road then and see the rest of Denmark, yea?" she asked, pushing a strand of hair that fell from her ponytail away from her face. He nodded before digging into his pocket and pulling out 2 hair clips that matched her hair color. Rose looked up at him in shock and he couldn't help but feel proud of himself for remembering.

"Doctor, when did you start carrying hair clips around?"

"Again, I listen to you even when I shouldn't. I remembered when we had to cross that alien swamp on Traverse 8. By the end of it, you had called me every name in the book and kept complaining about having no hair clips to keep those unruly strands of yours in place sooo I had the Tardis put a pair in each of my pants. You will never have to remember them ever again!"

She loved it when he got that look on his face. That look that said "I am so impressive and clever…you should DEFINITELY give me a compliment for my impressive cleverness". She silently took the hair clips from him, grinning as he watched her fascinatedly. Once she clipped the stray strands into place, she stood on her tippy toes and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek. When she pulled away, she noticed the tips of his ears turning red but quickly faded as he gave a bashful giggle and stumbled out a bit of thanks at the gesture.

_"__Oh this trip is going to be fantastic!"_ she thought as they stood there, beaming at each other.

_"__So…that could have gone a lot better…"_ he thought to himself as he drove carefully down the rocky path. The day had started out strong. The pool was as beautiful as he remembered it but a little more packed than he thought it would be around this time of year so there wasn't much room for swimming. Rose accidently picked up the orange bottle instead of the red so her sunscreen was actually sun tan lotion and she now looked like a boiled lobster. The café had been nice up until the point someone tried to rob it and he, of course, had to go in and save the day…which then led to lots of reports to filled out at the police station since he didn't have the Tardis to escape in. By the time he had dotted all the I's and crossed every T, Rose had already driven around and seen all the landmarks without him. So here they were, driving down this rocky path a lot slower than he wanted to because Rose's back and burned skin wouldn't be able to take it if he went over 30 mph.

"Are we going to be able to make the sunset at this pace, Doctor?" she asked as she looked upwards towards the sky. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked up as well. The sun was descending faster than he expected. He looked at her with sad eyes, "I think we'll get there just as the sun starts to disappear under the landscape. We can, at least, have the fire cooked meal and stars."

She gave him her signature grin and he felt his insides melt again. Suddenly the Bug lurched forward, sending his head into the stirring wheel and making Rose yelp. Next thing he knew, he was startled awake by a hard slap and her yelling his name. "Oh thank Gods, you're awake now," she said with relief, "We've crashed."

"Crashed…how in the world did we…" he mumbled out, his eyes focusing on the huge piece of metal he had missed earlier. "Wait…that looks like a piece of…what!?"

He jumped out of the car, ignoring the dizziness that came over him as he got a closer look at the huge chuck of metal. "Dear Rassilon…that is a piece of the Sycorax ship," he said slamming a fist onto the hood of the Bug. "Oh that's just lovely! I should have known better than to think this part of the day was going to go as plan. Everything else went down the bloody shitter!"

"Doctor?" he heard Rose call to him. He turned around to see her slowly hobbling around the Bug towards him. "Oh no…"

He quickly ran to her side, picking her up and sitting her on the hood of the car. How could he have forgotten to check on her first before getting out of the car? They crashed for Rassilon sakes. "What's wrong? What hurts?"

"My knee hit the glove compartment pretty hard. Luckily you always remind me to wear my seat belt or else I would have slammed my head into it as well. You know, for someone who preaches about seat belts, you sure didn't use yours." She reached out and caressed his forehead, making him wince in pain. He didn't realize he had such a tender spot. He made a note to himself to check it out later after he checked on her.

Bending down, he pulled up her dress to look over her knees. The right one was definitely swollen and purple compared to the left one that didn't seem to have sustained any damage at all. Thinking back to moments before the crash, he realized that she was twisted in the seat to face him without having to turn her head. "This is going to hurt but I need to touch and move your knee around to see how bad the damage is."

She nodded to him, "I'm pretty sure I've torn a few ligaments. My knee looked just like that the last time I hurt it. Took a tumble down the flat's stairs when I was 13 I did."

The Doctor smiled at her as he took her knee in hand. She hissed through her teeth but didn't tense up or pull away from him. He felt bad for causing her more discomfort on top of her other ailments. It was the only hiss she gave during his turning, poking, flexing, and tapping examination of her knee. "I don't think you have torn anything actually. I just think it took a really nasty whack on the metal part of the glove compartment," he said as he pointed to the center of her knee, "You can even see the keyhole imprint forming in the middle of the bruise."

Rose looked at her knee as if seeing it for the first time, "Oh my God! I never noticed that when I looked at it the first time."

"Weell, it's been about 15 minutes and 2 seconds since I was knocked out. That isn't the darkest that bruise is going to get…if I let it heal naturally."

She watched him as he popped the trunk and went rummaging around it. He came about around holding what looked like a portable fluorescent light. "What is that?"

He beamed at her, tossing it up in the air and catching it nimbly, "THIS is a portable dermal regenerator. You're Jeopardy friendly so I brought a med kit along for the trip."

Before she could ask more about the item, he placed it on her knee and the light started to glow a vibrant shade of violet. Vibrations soon followed the glow and she couldn't help but giggle at the feeling as he swiped it over her knee cap and the underside of her knee. Pulling it away, he smiled at his handy work, "There all done!"

Looking over her knee, she was shocked to see that the bruising had disappeared as well as the sunburn in the area. "If that machine gets rid of sunburn and bruising," she said bending her knee, "And most of the pain, why haven't you used it on your arm?"

He tugged nervously on his ear as he walked around to the trunk, "It only works on basic DNA. Superior Time Lord genetics comes with superiorly complex genetic code." He tossed the regenerator in with a thump before closing the trunk.

"So you're stuck being hurt?"

He came back around, still tugging on his ear, "Yup but it isn't all that bad really. Superior Time Lord genes have superior healing properties. The bruising on my arm will be gone a day or two while the same bruising on you would last a week or more. But I'm not going to let my favorite companion suffer like that. Nope," he said popping the 'p', "I have medical instruments fully stocked to help you get back on your feet in a 1/4th the time."

Oh he was wearing his signature face again, "You think you're soooo impressive."

"I am soooo impressive!" he said, offering her a hand. She took it and jumped down from the hood of the car, which seemed hot under her bum, "Doctor, should the car be running hot?"

His signature 'impressive' face turned into the 'that isn't good' face, "If the hood felt hot, that means the radiator is leaking fluid which means the Bug is running hot which means we won't be able to drive it back to the Tardis and we have about 30 minutes left of daylight."

"Ok…so how far are we from the beach?" she asked as she walked around to the passenger side looking for her tote.

"Oh, about 20 minutes worth of walking. It was supposed to be a surprise but…I got a tent and such all set up down there." He opened the backseat door and started to rummage around.

"Well that's good because I was just about to say we should just camp out down there. It would give the Bug time to cool down and I am definitely craving a fire cooked sausage."

He stood up from the backseat. A shoulder sling draped over his body and a portable cooler in his hand; he closed the door with his bottom before stepping over to her. "How's your knee feeling?"

"Oh, it feels great!"

"I'm really sorry about that outburst…"

"Don't be! Today has been a bit chaotic but when is it not when we're around?"

She took ahold of his free hand, which made him look down between them before giving her a bright smile, "That is true. Plans never go as planned when I'm around. Either way, Allons-y Rose Tyler!"

Three sausages, two bags of crisps, and half a bottle wine later, she was feeling pretty content sitting around the blazing fire with the Doctor's arms wrapped around her. They had been talking up until a half an hour ago when he got behind her to provide her back some protection from the cold air coming up from the ocean. He was right about this beach being secluded. It was only a quarter of a mile long with thick forestry surrounding it on 3 sides. He told her about how pirates used this beach as a secret trading spot and neutral ground and how he actually made it happen. Only the families and crew of the pirate captains knew how to get here but since then, the crews stopped coming and the location had been lost over the years to all; all except for one family, whose last name so happened to be Tyler.

He had never been so open with her before, "Why the sudden change?"

She seemed to have snapped him out of his silent thoughts as he jumped a little before answering, "What change?"

"I don't know," she said turning slightly in his arms so she could look up at him, "You've just been really honest with me since the Wharf. I don't mind or anything like that, I'm just wondering what is going through your head."  
>He gave a long sigh before threading his fingers through hers, bringing each hand to his lips to kiss the back side. "Does he have any idea what that does to me!?"<p>

"Rose Tyler, I almost lost you around this time yesterday. If you had slipped into the Void, I would have never been able to see you again and you would have most likely been killed on that plane of existence. I spent nearly 10 minutes trying to get you to open those beautiful hazel eyes of yours. But you opened them and I vowed then and there that I would never let a day go by that you didn't know how much you mean to me," he whispered into her ear before placing a soft kiss on her cheek.

The Doctor…just kissed her. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

"You know our temples are touching right now. What you just did was the equality of screaming in my ear. But yes, Rose, I am telling you that I…well…I love you and I know you probably only see me as a fri-mmmppphh!" was all he got out as Rose turned in his arm and pressed her lips against his.

_"__Humans…still surprising!"_

~*~*~*~*~

Jackie saw him just out of the corner of her eye as she followed her daughter and her new husband out of the church and towards the reception hall across the way. He didn't look the same anymore but she knew those haunted, ancient eyes anywhere. She waited until Rose and David were out of sight before she walked over towards him, stopping just feet away from him. "You look even younger in that body."

He smirked at her as he shook his head, trying to get his floppy mop out of his eyes, "And you still look quite beautiful."

"Oh hush up you! It's been 10 years since I've seen you. I'm going grey and everything!"

They stood there and laugh for a second before moving into an awkward silence. He was the one to break it, "Is he good to her? Are they happy? Have they had any…lapses?"

"Oh, they both catch each other staring off into the distance. David got a degree is astrophysics. Rose got a degree in astrology. Both of them are trying so hard to get to the stars because, I think, they know they are missing something. They are happy though. David even punched Jimmy Stone when he ran into him at the grocery store. He worships the ground that Rose walks on and vice versa. I…thank you."

"For what," he said pushing off from the brick wall he was leaning against, "Almost getting her killed?"

Jackie felt as if she had just been slapped in the face, "No, you idiot, for bringing my daughter back to me and making her happy! I know you don't want to face it but that man is you, Doctor! She has you even though she doesn't know it…"

His eyes glossed over for a moment, a look of pain crossed his face before morphing back into the unreadable mask he has worn since that day. He pulled a piece of paper out from inside his green jacket and placed it in her hands. "I'm sorry, Jackie. I shouldn't have said that…been a long week for me. I saw…the Cybermen again and they almost killed one of my good friends. Consider this a gift for both you and them. It is the least I can do for them as they start this… new adventure."

She looked at him before looking down to unfold the piece of paper. It was a lottery ticket. If a time traveler gives you a lottery ticket, it must be a winner. Jackie looked back up to find that he wasn't standing over her anymore.

He was down the end of the alley way, standing just inside the blue box's doors. He gave her a wide grin and a slight wave before snapping his fingers. The doors closed behind him as he moved towards the unfamiliar platform that she assumed was the new console. Moments later, the air stirred and that noise, oh that noise filled the air.

She stood there for a moment before she heard pounding footsteps coming from behind her. "He's here! Where is he!?" Mickey asked, running past her, looking around the alley.

"He's gone, Mickey…he just came to say goodbye in his own way," she mumbled as she continued to stare at the spot where the Tardis had been.


End file.
